Coronavirus Article Bar with counter
Nicola Sturgeon’s choice to award a £500 pandemic “thank you” to health and social care team of workers led to hundreds of thousands of pounds of bonuses being passed to highly paid council officials who were not on the front line, union leaders have complained.
The First Minister introduced in Nov 2020 that every one health and social care workforce in Scotland may receive the payment in reputation in their “strange” paintings through the pandemic.
but the GMB union said the eligibility criteria for the money had been so broad that “very senior managers, often working from home” certified for the taxpayer-funded cash.
Authentic figures, acquired underneath the freedom of information (FoI) Act, disclosed that more than £3million used to be handed out to nearly 6,000 council officials whose salaries passed £FORTY,000 in line with yr.
This equated to fifteen per cent of the entire staff who won the bonus. a complete of SIXTY SEVEN beneficiaries were essentially the most senior native authority managers – heads of carrier and directors with chief officer grades.
A spokesman for Health & Social Care North Lanarkshire mentioned: “Our chief officer gained the cost in line with Scottish Government steerage.” He showed the role was stuffed by way of Ross McGuffie, whose present annual cash is £ONE HUNDRED AND ONE,636.
‘Neatly-paid group of workers who weren’t frontline’
Keir Greenaway, a senior GMB organiser, stated: “Our individuals are livid. Those payments were intended to be an acknowledgement for the ones placing their lives on the line through the pandemic.
“As A Substitute millions of pounds of public money has been used to provide an advantage to smartly-paid group of workers who weren’t on the frontline of the pandemic response.
“We had very senior managers, frequently running from home, getting thanks bills while our individuals were out risking everything, being affected by poor or non-existent PPE to maintain the country transferring.”
Somebody employed in registered grownup social care or children’s residential care services who labored for a minimal of four weeks steadily between Mar 17 and Nov 30, 2020 was once eligible for the cost.
SNP ministers asked Scotland’s 32 native authorities to finish a declare form record all its officials who met the standards and so they had been paid the money, minus tax, in April closing year.
FoI responses from 28 of the councils disclosed that 5,890 of the 38,609 recipients earned greater than £FORTY,000 according to 12 months. In East Dunbartonshire, almost 30 in line with cent of beneficiaries earned in far more than this earnings.
Perth and Kinross had the following highest percentage of recipients earning more than £40,000 (26.7 in keeping with cent), adopted by way of Clackmannanshire (26 per cent), East Renfrewshire (25.4 in step with cent), Angus (24.8 per cent), South Lanarkshire (22.9 in line with cent), and West Lothian (22.8 according to cent).
A spokesman for the Conference of Scottish Local Authorities, the councils’ umbrella staff, mentioned: “Councils had been simply the delivery vehicle for this. It was a Scottish Government policy that they had been solely chargeable for.”
A Scottish Executive spokesman mentioned: “we’re massively grateful to the efforts of the numerous key staff in several sectors across Scotland as they rose to the challenge of responding to the pandemic.”
